I don't remember if it was said to be the reason for the size, but in school we were told that one hand-written legal pad sheet was a reasonable approximation of a double-spaced typed page. Seemed to work for me.

Cecil Adams' column: How did 8-1/2x11 and 8-1/2x14 become the standard paper sizes?

Cecil has a slight error in that column, although I can't shed much light on the legal size question.

Industrial cut paper sizes are more likely to be 17.5 x 22.5 inches, not 17 x 22 as Cecil says. When sheet paper is cut (as opposed to cutting from a roll), it is usually "double cut," that is, all edges are trimmed off, then the final size is cut out. While that seems like a waste, it cuts off just enough to remove damage from the most vulnerable part, the edge. Edge damage in commercial printing makes the print job look bad, and feeding paper with edge damage thru presses isn't a good idea, either.

17.5 x 22.5 becomes (4) 8.5 x 11 plus trimmings.

So large stacks of paper are shipped to the end destination, typically on pallets, then cut to size either just before printing and/or just after.

And the slivers that are trimmed off can be recycled into shredded packing material or other reuses, so it doesn't always end up in the dumpster.

FWIW, I've been an attorney for about 7 years, and I've never used legal size paper for anything, nor can I recall ever receiving a document on legal size paper. Maybe it's used in other practice areas or other regions, but not mine.

I think when I bought my house there may have been a doc or two that was legal size, but that's the only time I've ever seen it used. Wonder if it's going the way of the dodo.

We can only hope it becomes obsolete. It seems to be fairly common in my neck of the woods. I just refi'd my house and came home with an entire folder full of legal size documents. Now exactly where will I file those...?

FWIW, I've been an attorney for about 7 years, and I've never used legal size paper for anything, nor can I recall ever receiving a document on legal size paper. Maybe it's used in other practice areas or other regions, but not mine.

I think when I bought my house there may have been a doc or two that was legal size, but that's the only time I've ever seen it used. Wonder if it's going the way of the dodo.

I've been a lawyer since the last millennium, and I am pleased to say that legal size is falling out of favor. I still see it used in real estate deals. I try to avoid using it whenever possible. It's inconvenient to have to have some on hand, to have some papers hanging out of the bottom of the file getting a lot more wear, etc.

FWIW, I've been an attorney for about 7 years, and I've never used legal size paper for anything, nor can I recall ever receiving a document on legal size paper. Maybe it's used in other practice areas or other regions, but not mine.

I think when I bought my house there may have been a doc or two that was legal size, but that's the only time I've ever seen it used. Wonder if it's going the way of the dodo.

When I started, Mid-1980s-- it was being phased out. Some courts still required/allowed it. I don't see it anywhere anymore, but imagine there could be pockets of "old school" pleadings still around.

Legal length is pretty well a dead horse out here. The state and federal courts require letter size. The recorder of deeds discourages legal length. There might be an occasional obsolete fill-in-the-blanks legal length form floating around but that is about it.

All my 40 year old file cabinets are for legal length so I use legal size file folders -- it leaves a space at the bottom for phone numbers and the like.

You will, however, have to pry my legal length yellow pad from my cold dead hands.

Unless you're the Maricopa county Arizona recorder of deeds where they prefer legal sized documents be submitted for recording for some reason.

The only real estate related docs that we still produce that are always on legal sized paper are HUD1 statements, but that's just because they're just too busy and detailed to hope to be legiable on letter sized paper.

I think when I bought my house there may have been a doc or two that was legal size, but that's the only time I've ever seen it used. Wonder if it's going the way of the dodo.

I saw some when we bought our place which gave me one possibility. We had to initial everything. Maybe they add some room so you aren't signing your X over something important?

My only other thought would be if they left a gap at the top. When you have a stack of papers held together at the top (not spiral bound) and are flipping through them, the farther "down" you go the harder it is to read the top of the paper. (I'm mostly thinking of medical files because my doctor's file on me is about 8 1/2" thick).

FWIW, I've been an attorney for about 7 years, and I've never used legal size paper for anything, nor can I recall ever receiving a document on legal size paper. Maybe it's used in other practice areas or other regions, but not mine.

I think when I bought my house there may have been a doc or two that was legal size, but that's the only time I've ever seen it used. Wonder if it's going the way of the dodo.

Yep, at my closing was the last place I actually remeber seeing it used. That and the banks papers. It's almost like they want you to feel out of place in there preseance because they require paperwork so important that it needs to be larger than life.

I use it at work sometimes to print out drawings and spreadsheets so that I can actually read those damn little cells or actually view the whole sheet on one page in a meeting. Never fails that some smartass in the group comments about the large scale printout while typing on his laptop. Usually some cocky youngun with good eyesight; if had a cane I'd smake them all.

My understanding is that the extra length was originally used for notaries' seals and that kind of thing.

When I practiced law in the 1990s, we no longer produced documents on legal-sized paper, but all of our binders, files, and cabinets were still legal-sized. Every few months there was another notice about some court, agency, or other body that was discontinuing legal sizes.

Most people still used canary yellow legal-sized pads for taking notes on though.

I want to take a second to complain about A4 sized paper. I process all the invoices at my work for payment, and every once and a while one will come in from the UK. A4 paper's dimensions are just off enough that it's not noticeable if it's by itself. But it's enough to damn my scanner.

We can only hope it becomes obsolete. It seems to be fairly common in my neck of the woods. I just refi'd my house and came home with an entire folder full of legal size documents. Now exactly where will I file those...?

Some of the Banker's Boxes you can get at Staples or Office Max are made to take regular size papers in one direction, but it you turn the box 90 degrees you'll find it's just right for legal papers.

On the contrary, I find handwritten notes on canary yellow paper much easier on the eyes than notes on stark white paper. Also, the rules blend more harmoniously on yellow. On white, the blue lines have too much contrast.

The real estate industry in Wisconsin has finally discarded all legal-size forms. That makes for more sheets of paper, but it's more manageable than mixed sizes. Some banks still use legal, and that makes it hard to file in our letter-sized cabinets and copy in our optimally letter-sized copiers. I'm glad of the trend and hope it continues to extinguish legal sized anything.

Well, AFAIK you guys are the only ones who insist on using non-ISO-standard paper sizes. OTOH, you're also about the only industrialized country which refuses to go metric, so it's somewhat fitting (although we don't really understand why you're so stubborn about conforming to the rest of the world).

One advantage with A4 is the aspect ratio. It's 1:1.4142, which means that if you double the size (to A3), it keeps the aspect ratio. Or if you cut it in two (to A5), that has the same aspect ratio too.

Well, AFAIK you guys are the only ones who insist on using non-ISO-standard paper sizes.

And this causes what kind of confusion? As far as I know, in the Phillipines and Singapore, they like to eat cheese-flavoured ice cream on hot dog rolls. The people in most of the rest of the world has stubbornly refused to go along with this.

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OTOH, you're also about the only industrialized country which refuses to go metric, so it's somewhat fitting (although we don't really understand why you're so stubborn about conforming to the rest of the world).

Uh ... so what? There is no why. Why do Canadians put vinegar or gravy on their french fries instead of ketchup? Why do Indians use the term "poached egg" to describe a fried egg?

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One advantage with A4 is the aspect ratio. It's 1:1.4142, which means that if you double the size (to A3), it keeps the aspect ratio. Or if you cut it in two (to A5), that has the same aspect ratio too.

It's so confusing when everyone in the world doesn't want goods that meet exactly the same parameters.

You know, if you're planning to exchange goods with, uh, furriners, it's sometimes an advantage to follow some kind of standardization scheme. That's why we have international standards like metric, or all the ISO standards. It's not the same as your favorite ice cream flavor, so there's never been and will never be an ISO standard for "your favorite ice cream flavor". But sure, if import, export and exchange of stuff and ideas across borders is an alien concept, I can understand your position.

"Liters? Kilometers? No, I don't know what that stuff you're talking about is, this wagon can run 160 furloughs on a bushel of gasoline"

You know, if you're planning to exchange goods with, uh, furriners, it's sometimes an advantage to follow some kind of standardization scheme. That's why we have international standards like metric, or all the ISO standards. It's not the same as your favorite ice cream flavor, so there's never been and will never be an ISO standard for "your favorite ice cream flavor". But sure, if import, export and exchange of stuff and ideas across borders is an alien concept, I can understand your position.

"Liters? Kilometers? No, I don't know what that stuff you're talking about is, this wagon can run 160 furloughs on a bushel of gasoline"

Damn standards, when I am delivering my A4 sized paper I get 12 kilometRes to the litRe in my car.

Serioulsy though - I HATE letter sized paper, everything here is A4...which is so much friendlier.

Now if only I could teach Bill Gates to reconfigure to A4 as default all would be peachy (yeah, I know it's in the settings, and is often one of the first things I change when I get a new work station)

And since when do they eat CHEESE flavour ice-cream in Singapore? Not that I have ever heard.

What exactly is the confusion? Do we also have to eat your favourite flavour of ice cream and wear clothes in your preferred style too?

Nope; you can eat your sheep-dung ice-cream and wear neon-green mankinis until the cows come home, for all I care. With paper sizes, though, it's a nuisance to produce documents formatted for two different sizes. This becomes a particular problem in the case of documents where the pagination is fixed, such as PDFs, forcing you to scale the document when printing, and have very large margins. It's a common problem when receiving or sending documents to American clients; the printing goes all screwy on both ends. With documents that are repaginated when opened (such as Word documents) just opening the file on a different locale can completely screw up formatting, making related objects split across multiple pages and introducing blank pages because of page breaks.

Relax and ease off the coffee; it's not about the Big Global Conspiracy to Take Over Your Life, it's just much easier to work with a single paper standard when working globally. Your comparison to ice-cream and clothing is not really valid, since those don't cause problems of the same sort.

What you in the US refer to as "legal paper" is called "foolscap" in the British Commonwealth countries. I don't know about the Continent et al.

As a schoolboy in the late 1960s foolscap was the standard size of a ringbinder and the pad of paper. By the mid-70s A4 was making its mark and by 1980 was becoming standard.

I started legal practise in 1979 and don't recall a lot of foolscap documents surviving by that time. We still prepared wills on goatskin foolscap which were sewn with green tape. All court documents were folded down in thirds. Leases and title deeds were also foolscap.

The march of progress and standardisation of photocopiers, typewriters, then computer printers, faxes etc through the 1980s saw foolscap disappear.

So I was delighted on a journey to the US to discover your legal sized paper was still fighting a rear-guard action against bland modernity. All power to you.

In truth I envy American lawyers their yellow legal pads which are a delight to write on and provide that extra space often needed when making notes. It doesn't exist in New Zealand. Just bland white A4 blocks.

Well, AFAIK you guys are the only ones who insist on using non-ISO-standard paper sizes. OTOH, you're also about the only industrialized country which refuses to go metric, so it's somewhat fitting (although we don't really understand why you're so stubborn about conforming to the rest of the world).

It's hard to justify the cost of the conversion. Plus, if there were a debate on this in 2011, somebody would start a political party claiming that the bible uses feet and inches and that Mr. Obama's trying to convert everybody to a Martian religion.

In Canada we use the same paper sizes as in the U.S., even though Canada adopted metric/SI around 1977.

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One advantage with A4 is the aspect ratio. It's 1:1.4142, which means that if you double the size (to A3), it keeps the aspect ratio. Or if you cut it in two (to A5), that has the same aspect ratio too.

I'm sure this gives somebody, somewhere, the impression that these paper sizes are a natural consequence of the structure of the universe...

What you in the US refer to as "legal paper" is called "foolscap" in the British Commonwealth countries.

Hey, thanks for that! I've read the term "foolscap" several times when reading British authors, and via context I've always known it meant paper, but I mistakenly assumed it referred to a variety of paper, i.e. vellum, parchment, foolscap, etc. I didn't realize it was the word for a specific size of the paper.

A4 ... I like it. I ended up needing to buy it when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons and I found some custom-designed character sheets that were far superior to the default character sheet that comes in the back of the D&D Player's Handbook. These custom sheets were designed by a guy in England, and were formatted for A4 paper. I had discovered that if I scaled them down to fit an 8.5" x 11" sheet, the type became uncomfortably small, and printing them on legal-sized paper just wasted a lot of space (and the paper hung out of my 3-ring binder). So I ordered a ream of A4 from a place I found online. I found the dimensions aesthetically pleasing.